I have a feeling for those ships, <br />Each worn and ancient one, <br />With great bluff bows, and broad in the beam: <br />Ay, it was unkindly done. <br />But so they serve the Obsolete- <br />Even so, Stone Fleet! <br /> <br />You'll say I'm doting; do but think <br />I scudded round the Horn in one- <br />The Tenedos, a glorious <br />Good old craft as ever run- <br />Sunk (how all unmeet!) <br />With the Old Stone Fleet. <br /> <br />An India ship of fame was she, <br />Spices and shawls and fans she bore; <br />A whaler when her wrinkles came- <br />Turned off! till, spent and poor, <br />Her bones were sold (escheat)! <br />Ah! Stone Fleet. <br /> <br />Four were erst patrician keels <br />(Names attest what families be), <br />The Kensington, and Richmond too, <br />Leonidas and Lee: <br />But now they have their seat <br />With the Old Stone Fleet. <br /> <br />To scuttle them-a pirate deed- <br />Sack them, and dismast; <br />They sunk so slow, they died so hard, <br />But gurgling dropped at last. <br />Their ghosts in gales repeat <br />Woe's us, Stone Fleet! <br /> <br />And all for naught. The waters pass- <br />Currents will have their way; <br />Nature is nobody's ally; 'tis well; <br />The harbor is bettered-will stay. <br />A failure, and complete, <br />Was your Old Stone Fleet.<br /><br />Herman Melville<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-stone-fleet/
